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“Amanda.”
Great, she’s almost got everything set up for her game and here comes that neanderthal Hoffman, probably to ask her to add some detail that can help him look even more heroic. God, he was such a fucking cop, it made Amanda sick to her damn stomach.
She groans, turning around from where she’s tightening a few parts of the shotgun collar to attend to Hoffman. “What the fuck is it?”
He looks absolutely worn, like he’s been chasing a Great Dane around the fucking meat packing plant or something. He also looks stressed as all hell, which is rare for the fucking oaf he is. Hoffman is usually wearing that smug ass smile of his— so whatever it is for him to be looking like a wet dog, it’s probably pretty dire.
Hoffman exhales and inhales until his face is only pink, not bright red, then sighs. “The kid. She’s gone.”
Amanda raises an eyebrow. “What kid?”
“Lynn Denlon’s daughter. Corbett. Who the fuck else?” The way Hoffman phrases it makes it seem like it’s an asinine question, as if his former partner he was throwing into his own game wasn’t married. How was Amanda supposed to know everything, anyway?
“Christ, I don’t fucking know. I thought the boytoy you were throwing in your trap was married, it’s not impossible for him to have a kid.” Amanda blinks, then absorbing the gravity of the situation. “Wait, how didja fuckin’ lose her? You were the one putting her into that fucking cell, genius!” She’s suddenly pissed as all fuck, finding herself shouting at her bonehead of an accomplice and waving her wrench around threateningly. And to Hoffman’s credit, at least he looks somewhat guilty.
“She’s an eight year old, Amanda,” Hoffman says, pinching the bridge of his nose, clearly spent. “Kids are always finding new ways to slip out of small spaces.”
Amanda scowls at him. “So you didn’t fuckin’ think to secure it a little more?”
Hoffman narrows his eyes, attempting to leverage his size over Amanda to intimidate her. It never worked, because he wasn’t even five foot ten, but he would always try regardless. He sticks a meaty finger in her face, pointing at her accusingly. His hands are just as sweaty and nasty as he is, and Amanda wrinkles her nose at the sight.
“Listen, you fuckin’ junkie bitch, I—“
Before their argument can escalate, though, there’s a loud crash that sounds from the main chamber of the meat packing facility, and they both snap their heads around at the sound. It’s where Amanda put her prototypes while she wasn’t working on them, and where every old trap was preserved, along with odds and ends. John has been asleep for most of the day as has become the new normal, and he’s too frail to get out of the makeshift hospital cot without Amanda’s help. God knows he didn’t trust Hoffman with helping him out of bed. But really, that means the stirring in the main chamber can only mean one of very few things.
Amanda stalks to the main chamber, Hoffman trailing several steps behind her. When she comes into the main chamber, sure enough, there is a young girl sifting through a pile of random scraps of metal. She truly does look like the spitting image of the woman she had been stalking for a few weeks that she was about to kidnap in a few hours— Lynn Denlon. The girl’s complexion is a bit lighter than Lynn’s, but only by a shade or two, and she evidently has her mom’s thick, black locks. So- ah. This must be Corbett. Amanda didn’t realize this little girl was seemingly a part of the game, which makes her heart sting a little.
Despite the fact she’s in a torture labyrinth, Corbett seems to be enjoying herself. She doesn’t seem to have touched any of the traps, which Amanda is more than grateful for, a stuffed rabbit under her arm as her companion. The innocent and peaceful sight of it all Amanda’s moody daydreams about an innocent girl being pulled into a game due to her neglectful parents fade to the back of her mind, thankfully.
The girl’s eyes then land on Amanda, and she suddenly feels uncomfortable. It’s not like she ever considered herself bad with kids— but being around them was not her favorite thing in the world. It brought back too much she had purposefully sealed away, it brought back how cruel everything that happened to her was when she was just an innocent little kid. Amanda was even hesitant about being responsible for Daniel Matthews and helping him escape the nerve gas house, even as he was a teenager and thus things were a bit different. John had forced her into it, as he always did, but thankfully things turned out fine and Daniel was a good kid anyways. A genuinely good kid— she had wondered how his monster of a father raised someone with such a conscience.
Amanda’s musings are interrupted, though, by the girl padding softly up to her. Corbett has big brown eyes like her mom’s, holding her rabbit securely and looking up at Amanda.
“Excuse me, miss, but can I play with this?” She points to the- of course— reverse bear trap sitting on the table. It’s not the one Amanda was put in, but it’s one of John’s final prototypes. It’s as big and bulky as the one she once wore, but John had told her it was faulty in the sense that it didn’t attach to the jaw correctly. As such, John had removed the spikes that pierced into both the lower and upper jaw to repurpose them for other projects. It’s still a reverse bear trap regardless, but it is more or less a harmless one. Besides, most if not all of these traps wouldn’t go off if you strapped yourself into it— that’s not how it worked.
Amanda’s eyes narrow against her will, as she looks at the reverse bear trap, and then again at the kid. She nods, lifting the trap up with one hand to drop it into Corbett’s tiny ones.
“Sure, kid. Knock yourself out.” The girl’s brown eyes gleam eagerly, the trap slipping out of Amanda’s hand and into hers. She seems enthralled with it, and Amanda pulls up a stool from nearby and sits on it to supervise.
“You cannot be fuckin’ serious,” Hoffman growls to her after stomping up to her, looking warily at the girl having the time of her life with the reverse bear trap. “I’m supposed to save her after, you know. If she fuckin’ gets hurt that puts everything in jeopardy.” Of course, all he’s concerned about is whether the kid gets hurt because it could make his games go sour. Asshole.
“Hoffman, you fat fuckin’ ox,” Amanda says, which makes the man bristle and become visibly more upset. “The kid is fine. I’m keepin’ an eye on her anyways, see.” She nods to Corbett, who is indeed completely fine, sitting on the ground playing with the top lever of the trap. “‘Sides, it’s one of John’s fucked-up prototypes. It’s not gonna hurt nobody.”
Hoffman scowls, but seems to resign to this. “Fine,” he grumbles out. “But if anything happens, it’s your head on the goddamn chopping block, not mine.” He stalks off to one of the many side rooms connected to the main chamber, likely because he still wants to monitor Amanda and his loser ass refuses to trust her with the most basic of tasks.
Amanda doesn’t say anything to the little girl for a few minutes, just keeping her within her watchful eye and making sure she’s not wandering into any death traps and/or breaking things. Amanda gets the impression that Corbett is a quiet girl, rarely a disruptive presence. Regardless, she still is a child, and Amanda decides she eventually has to break the silence or else risk the girl wandering off to find more dangerous and thus thrilling things to play with.
“Y’know, I escaped from one of those before.” Corbett’s brown eyes flick upwards to Amanda’s, curious. Amanda points a wiry finger towards the reverse bear trap, nodding at it. “Most of the traps ain’t that easy to escape, that one included. But I did.”
Corbett looks at the trap almost mystically, like it’s a holy object. Amanda figures it’s for the best if the girl doesn’t know what happens if you fail to escape the trap, but she’s the kid of a surgeon— she’s smart enough to figure it out on her own. “Does this one work?”
Amanda almost grins at this girl being so inquisitive about the traps, scoffing affectionately and shaking her head. “Nah. That one’s a prototype, but not the final— it’s kinda busted.”
Corbett blinks, carefully peering around at different parts of the trap to seemingly look for the design flaw. If she wanted to be a surgeon like her mom, she might be damn good at it. Amanda then cracks an idea to appease the kid— maybe not a wholly safe one, but it would make this girl happy most likely. And if this kid is to find joy playing with faulty death traps, who is she to stop her, right?
“You can put it on, if y’want. Just be careful.” Corbett’s eyes glitter, and Amanda’s heart feels weirdly… warm? Like she did something nice for this lonely kid, and now said kid was delighted. Corbett doesn’t waste any time, putting the headgear on and having to hold it up with two hands. Her stuffed rabbit slips from under her arm, which Amanda immediately swoops up and places on the table.
“It’s heavy,” the girl says, and Amanda laughs. “I know. It’s some serious headgear. Betcha wouldn’t want to get stuck with this at the dentist’s, huh?” Corbett giggles, and the warmth returns again. It’s almost like an older sister instinct— something she felt so painfully with— no, no, she can’t think about him right now. Regardless.
Hoffman lumbers back into the main chamber, a glare on his face as he looks towards the two of them, just out of Corbett’s eyesight. He beckons Amanda over, the little girl thankfully too engaged with the reverse bear trap to pay attention to Amanda slinking off.
“Amanda,” he says sharply. “It’s almost time for you to leave. You better put the kid away and haul your ass to the hospital, now.”
Amanda scoffs. “Christ, I fuckin’ get it, you blockhead. Go finish your shit, I’ll take care of it an’ head out.”
Hoffman narrows his eyes, but he seems to resign to this. “…Fine.” He stalks back away, likely to make sure everything is in place for his game before he brings his own pawns in.
She goes back to Corbett, leaning against the table. “Hey, kid. Y’wanna play a game?”
The girl looks up at her with her big, brown eyes. “What kind?” She’s almost shy about it— even though Corbett has likely gathered now that she can trust Amanda, she was still a quiet and reserved kid, it seemed. Amanda grins, slipping her hand under the top bar of the reverse bear trap and sliding it up and off the girl’s head, placing it back gently on the table.
“Hide and seek,” she says calmly. “But the rules are a bit different.” Amanda gently grabs her stuffed rabbit, crouching down and handing it to Corbett. She offers her hand to the girl— calloused, rough, probably smelling of oil. Corbett takes it, slightly wary. She was a smart kid, surely.
“Just follow me, yeah?” The little girl nods in response, and Amanda stands up, walking carefully out of the main chamber.
The initial chamber Corbett was placed in was pretty out of the way, but not wholly impossible to find. It was probably possible to find if someone kept trying at it, but it would still be pretty difficult. That was something about the facility— it was labyrinthe, full of winding mazes and doors that went in circles or back to the same room. This chamber for Corbett was specifically placed on the other side of the main warehouse that Hoffman was staging Rigg’s test in, to easily swoop her out after. The bathroom was probably the only room that was more or less a dead end, which was why it was ideal to leave someone to rot in. As much as Amanda hated to think about that.
It doesn’t take too long before they’re at the small chamber, the door still somewhat open. Hoffman definitely must’ve forgot to close it or otherwise lock it, leading to Corbett’s escape. Fucking dumbass. His head must be full of rocks, surely.
“Alright,” Amanda starts, crouching down again and looking at the girl intently. “So I’m gonna hide, and you can go seek. But- the difference is you’re not gonna start counting until you hear… a loud noise. And you’re gonna count until… 100.”
The little girl blinks. “How long will that take?”
Amanda exhales. “Maybe a bit. But not too long, I promise.”
“You pinky promise?” Corbett holds up her pinky, and Amanda of course has to promise her, no matter the circumstances or the outcome of the upcoming tests. She wraps her pinky around the kid’s tiny one, giving her a small smile. “I pinky promise, kid.”
“Mandy’s got you.”
☆★☆